


Hiding In The Midnight

by ebenflo



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Borrowed Memories, Credence Barebone is alive, Dreams, Feels, Good Original Percival Graves, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Original Percival Graves, Slow Burn, Songfic, catapult, confused feelings, transference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebenflo/pseuds/ebenflo
Summary: Graves thinks it is a curious thing indeed to be haunted by the memory of someone you have never actually met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title & story inspired by the song "Catapult" by Jack Savoretti.  
> Lyrics in footnotes.  
> Link to song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYZOnIEUdYU
> 
> Characters and original Fantastic Beasts story belong to JK Rowling.  
> No profit is being made: this fanfic is for entertainment only.

Graves thinks it is a curious thing indeed to be haunted by the memory of someone you have never actually met. It starts as dreams, or fragments of a dream. Swirls and whorls of black smoke that slip through the sieve of his consciousness until he wakes trembling. 

Sometimes the smoke takes form, long lean bones and cheekbones sharp enough to cut through diamond. Graves wakes with strangled cries and biting guilt keeps him up the remainder of the night for crimes he can't remember committing. 

Sometimes the smoke is faceless, murmuring to him through the small hours, and somehow Graves can't help but feel like he has failed it somehow.

He knows the smoke by name but only through scattered accounts of others who were witness to the _Calamity_.

_Dangerous._

_Unpredictable._

Beautiful, Newt says sadly, before muttering a half-assed excuse and scuttling away. Graves doesn't miss the way his eyes glisten with moisture before he flees.

For the most part, Graves feels like the others at work take great pains to avoid saying the name around him at all, as if calling it by name will summon the darkness. A taboo.

He knows the list of offences committed by that individual, of course, they were quick to show him that at least, as if that was all that he consisted of.

Smoke and sin.

He knows the terrible and immense power barely contained (and more often, not) within that pale parcel of skin and bone.

But it's utterly maddening - the way they cut their conversations short when he accidentally stumbles upon a discussion. Or the way they change the topic when he tries to broach the subject, when all Graves wants to do is ask what he was like? _Beautiful._ What was his life like? _Terrible._

What Credence meant to him and why there's a fierce ache in his chest when the case file falls across his desk one day before it is quickly snatched up by one of his assistants.

"Sorry, Director Graves." The apology is hushed, almost embarrassed. She's a pretty flighty thing, one of the Goldstein girls. She's trembling beneath her blonde curls but her fingers are nimble and firm as they grasp the file.

He grabs the wrist of the girl, allowing some slack when she gasps as though branded.

"Why?"

"Sir."

"Why won't any of you look me in the eye when you talk of Credence Barebone?"

There, he said it. Graves feels a hush fall upon the room, and if the smoke has ever been present outside his dreams, it's now and here. Licking and pouring over his skin as the name rolls of his tongue. Somewhere deep inside him a sombre piano note plays over and over, waiting, anxious.

"Sir I- I'm not the best person to speak to about this."

"I need to know." Graves realises with no small degree of shame how much it sounds like pleading, even to his own ears, but there's no going back. Not from here, not from this. If Credence Barebone was ever anything more than a borrowed memory he needs to know. It itches and burns under his skin as though he's been hexed.

Even if he would never see him in this life.

Even if he were gone.

Graves has to know.

Queenie - that was her name - looks at him with sympathy, but a startling clarity too as though she can read things hidden even to himself.

"You...but...Director Graves. How can you love someone you've never even met?"

Graves flees.

 

**

He's holed up in one of his safe houses, a ramshackle loft apartment in the city's seedier quarter. He's shook, even though the apparating comes easy to him and there isn't a safer place in all of New York. He's never alone, not these days. His demons won't let him.

_Mr Graves..._

He ignores it. A memory, that's all it is, and not even his own. Some form of transference from the dark magic that allowed Grindelwald to wear his flesh suit. Graves grits his teeth against the pounding in his skull. 

_Mr Graves..._

"In mercy's name, leave me alone," he pleads with the darkness. If he slits his eyes and peers outside he could just imagine tendrils of black, oily and sinuous, lapping at the edges of light pooling below the lamppost.

_Mr Graves..._

"I said go away!"

"Director Graves is that you?" The voice comes from outside his door, the wards at least doing their part.

"Scamander?"

Incredulous. How Scamander is able to find his hiding place when few others know even of its existence is impressive in and of itself. What he is doing here, however, is another matter.

"Scamander I must ask you to leave."

"I'm sorry Director Graves, Queenie, she..."

Newt is clearly at a loss for words. Graves would snicker at the mental image of Scamander ducking his head of scraggly hair and scuffing his worn shoes against the skirting...if only he weren't consumed by the mortification of what exactly Queenie had told the Zoologist.

"She said...never mind. Sir I think you should know. Credence Barebone is alive."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CATAPULT - Jack Savoretti  
> Following the headlights  
> Got to find a way back to you  
> I can be the white knight  
> You can play the princess  
> We'll be running like outlaws  
> Hiding in the midnight  
> Break down them gates  
> Let in the sunlight
> 
> Throw me over these walls  
> High up in the atmosphere  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> Watch the empire fall  
> I'm gonna get you outta here  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> To where you are
> 
> You say you had your heart broken  
> What a stupid little thing to do  
> Now you're tied to a train track  
> But I'm a gonna come  
> And rescue you  
> Make no mistake  
> I'll do whatever it takes
> 
> To get over these walls  
> High up in the atmosphere  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> Watch the empire fall  
> Ooh I'm gonna get you outta here  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> To where you are  
> If I could catapult my heart
> 
> Oh throw me over these walls  
> Ooh high up in the atmosphere  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> Watch the empire fall  
> Ooh I'm gonna get you outta here  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> To where you are  
> If I could catapult my heart  
> To where you are  
> I'm gonna catapult my heart


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of hope and a new adventure.

Moments stretch into hours. Hours into days, until all that is left is the shaky exhale of his own breath and the dust motes swirling in the firelight.

“Mr Graves?”

“It’s Percival.” The building creaks and groans as the wards shift and bend, and the door swings upon to reveal a startled Scamander. “Where is he?”

Newt hurries inside with furtive looks cast over his shoulder.

“I - I wasn’t sure, if I should come to you. With this information.”

“Why not?” Graves asks, but the answer is there, written in the hesitation on Scamander’s freckled face. “I pose no threat to the boy, if that’s what you’re so concerned about.”

I could never hurt him.

“It’s just- well, your interest in the boy.”

“Scamander I am the Director of Security, if it’s not my job to-“

“Beardsley is acting Direct-“ Scamander mumbles.

“-ascertain the safety of individuals within-“

“-he’s not really a member of…well, he’s not registered yet anyway, and-“

“Scamander!”

Newt finally straightens up and looks Graves dead in the eye and Graves is strangely touched to see a fierce defiance within the gingery upstart.

“Tina feels I should come with you. To find him.”

“Mr. Scamander. Newt.” Graves tone is softer, placating. “Please. Just tell me where he is.”

“Well that’s just it.” Scamander nervously rubs the back of his neck and stares at the floor, apparently having developed a sudden fascination with Graves’ floor tiles. “I’m not sure he’s really uh, there so to speak.”

Graves’ mouth is bone dry. He grips the edge of his desk, knuckles whitening.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure that Bareb- Credence, is um, whole. It’s entirely possible he may well be stuck in a less than corporeal form.”

“You mean to say he’s….what?”

“I believe Sir that he may intermittently be trapped in his Obscurial form.”

Graves feels the floor tilt and fall away beneath him.

“That? That’s what you came here to tell me? You’d have me chasing after smoke?”

“Sir I-“

“And just how do you propose we find this smoke? Do you suggest we wander the streets of Manhattan yelling out for it? Do we put an advertisement in the No-Maj classifieds?”

Graves acknowledges just how ridiculous all of this sounds, even in his own head, but vague hysteria is better than giving heed to the awful feeling of rising bile at the thought that Credence might actually be stuck as a maelstrom of ash and wind forever.

“Sir, I-“

“Get out.” Graves voice is full of controlled rage and even he is a stranger to his own fury. Newt takes a hesitant step back but does not immediately leave. If Graves weren’t so angry (at what, himself?) he would have been damn well impressed with the Brit’s tenacity.

“What makes you think I would go chasing after him?”

“Well, Queenie, she…sir, we know you care for the boy.”

Graves raises a hand in protest but Newt merely presses on.

“Merlin knows why, but you do. Now whether it’s displaced grief, or guilt – not that you have any reason to feel that way, entirely not your fault. But you see the thing is, you’re not alone. Tina has barely slept through the Inquisition that followed. And I…Percival I think I might be able to help him, I really do.”

“Newt.”

“Sir?”

“Please leave my apartment.”

Newt seems to consider his options for a moment and Graves wonders just how strong he is to mount an argument. There are many reasons beyond those of his traitorous heart as to why he should heed Scamander’s words. Good, strong logical reasons, like national security, protection of an innocent. But Graves is not a good, strong person.

“Goodnight, Mr Scamander.”

Newt finally relents, giving Graves a vague nod of his head and turns to leave. Graves watches curiously as Newt unfurls his fingers, revealing a crumpled slip of paper which he places on the dresser by the door.

“Cairo,” Newt mutters on his departure, barely perceptible above the din of the train tracks outside. “You’ll find him in Cairo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to continue it after all.


End file.
